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Friday 3rd of July 2020

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2020 Presidential election MAGA LESS MEGA Drudge Report headline for an article about Trump's June 19, 2020, rally in Tulsa to re-launch his reelection bid that attracted a mere 6,200 supporters instead of the million Trump announced © 2020 Kwiple.com
Books Until recently, to understand America's political system, citizens could read classics like Democracy in America, The American Political Tradition, and Profiles in Courage. Then Donald J. Trump was elected president. Now Americans are reading On Tyranny, How Democarcies Die, and the Mueller report. Daniel W. Drezner, The Toddler in Chief © 2020 Kwiple.com
Bullshitters Who are the people who rule our country, the people most often invited on talk shows? The people on Mount Bullshit. Rutger Bregman [“Mount Bullshit” is Bregman's term for where people are when they think they know everything there is to know about a subject] © 2020 Kwiple.com
COVID-19 coronavirus Having the worlds best labortories will come to naught if Americans refuse to fight side-by-side in the same war. Edward Luce, Financial Times, June 11, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
COVID-19 coronavirus Look, I fully support banning travel from Europe to prevent the spread of infectious disease. I just think it's 528 years too late.  Rebecca Nagle, a Cherokee writer, 6:25 PM · Mar 12, 2020  © 2020 Kwiple.com
COVID-19 coronavirus Testing is a double-edged sword. We've tested now 25 million people. … When you do testing to that extent, you're going to find more cases, so I said to my people, “Slow the testing down, please.” Donald Trump, Tulsa rally, June 20, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
COVID-19 coronavirus This brutal shock is attacking a body that was already vulnerable. In the event of a global depression, a postmortem might identify covid-19 as the cause of death, but, as with so many of the virus's victims, the economy had a preëxisting condition — debt, instead of pulmonary disease. Corporate debt, high-yield debt, distressed debt, student debt, consumer debt, mortgage debt, sovereign debt. Nick Paumgarten, The New Yorker, April 20, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Foreign relations Distant water cannot put out a nearby fire. Chinese and Vietnamese proverb used across Asia to express doubts about America's reliability as an ally © 2020 Kwiple.com
Foreign relations The entire foreign policy is based on a single unstable individual's reaction to perceptions of slights or flattery. If someone says something nice about him, they are our friend; if they say something unkind, they are our enemy. Henry Kissinger on the Trump's foreign policy © 2020 Kwiple.com
Foreign relations The hard-liners [in Reagan's administration] felt that foreign policy and covert operations were an exclusively presidential domain. “The business of Congress is to stay the [expletive] out of my business” is how Reagan's first C.I.A. director, William Casey, put it in an interview with the political scientist Loch K. Johnson. Mattathias Schwartz, New York Times Magazine, June 7, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Fox News A total of 19 people have migrated from working at Fox News to serve in the Trump administration. Daniel W. Drezner, The Toddler in Chief [as of July 22, 2019] © 2020 Kwiple.com
Income inequality CEOs' total pay has also grown consistently above inflation in that period [2014 to 2019], attracting political scrutiny. The Associated Press, using Equilar data, reported that the median pay package for the head of an S&P 500 company exceeded $12.3m in 2019, with the gap between CEOs and their workforces widening to the point where it would take the typical employee 169 years to make as much. Financial Times, June 10, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Kwiplers say Calculate the minimum wage as follows: MW = CMHI / CMHS × WPY × HPW where: MW = Minimum Wage CMHI = Current Median Household Income, e.g., $65,000 CMHS = Current Median Household Size, e.g., 2.1 people WPY = Workdays Per Year, e.g., 240 HPW = Hours Per Workday, e.g., 8 [MW would be $16.12 using data above] © 2019 Kwiple.com
Kwiplers say Count votes in Congress by: 1. Calculating a Member's Proportional Vote (MPV) for each member, as follows: MPV = SPNP / NLRS where: SPNP = State's Percentage of the National Population NLRS = Number of Legislators Representing the State (in that legislature) 2. Totaling “yes” MPVs and “no” MPVs 3. Passing if total MPV is more than 50 OTHERWISE Abolish the Senate © 2019 Kwiple.com
Making money the new-fashioned way Creating a scam Political Action Committee © 2020 Kwiple.com
Migration We focus on the distinction between refugees and “economic migrants,” without asking why the fear of hunger and destitution qualifies as a lesser reason for migration than the fear of imprisonment or death by gunshot wound – and then only if that wound is inflicted for political or religious reasons. Mascha Gessen, New York Review of Books, February 8, 2018 © 2020 Kwiple.com
National security Nothing anyone on the National Security Council staff, in the council's office or from across government can outweigh what the President hears from conservatives on cable television. Time  magazine, February 20, 2018 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Oligarchs Oligarchs are immoral business leaders who, as Russia's Vladimir Putin defined them in the Financial Times, use their “proximity to the authorities to receive super profits”. That makes me wonder: is there any better description of  Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg – a man who caters to US President Donald Trump by refusing to remove his inaccurate and inflammatory posts from the social media platform – than an American oligarch? Rana Foroohar, Financial Times, June 7, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Post-2018 Senate shituation 15 states (Alaska, Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, Wyoming) 2018 population: 40,056,961 Senators: 30 Republicans 1 Senator per 1,335,232 people — 1 state (California) 2018 population: 39,776,830 Senators: 2 Democrats 1 Senator per 19,888,415 people 19,888,415 / 1,335,232 = 16, therefore: average 15er's vote is worth 16 times a Californian's, a Californian's vote is worth 6% of an average 15er's — 1 state (Wyoming) 2018 population = 573,720, therefore: 1 Senator per 286,860 Wyomians, a Wyomian's vote is worth 69 times a Californian's, a Californian's vote is worth 1.4% of a Wyomian's © 2016 Kwiple.com
Presidency Constitutionally, it is wrong to conceive of the President as simply the highest officer within the Executive branch hierarchy. He alone is the Executive branch. William Barr, apologist for unlimited presidential power © 2020 Kwiple.com
Silicon Valley In 2018, venture capital groups employed 18 black investing partners, representing less than 2 per cent of the industry’s total, according to data compiled by Richard Kerby at Equal Ventures. Even fewer were Latinx, or of Latin American descent. Sequoia Capital, widely viewed as Silicon Valley's marquee venture firm, does not count a single black partner among its ranks. Financial Times, June 20, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Snapshot She is willing to say that Trump “came into office on the back of a revolution” and has been “massively disruptive.” Warming to the subject, she says she got to experience Russian history – inside the White House. “I kept thinking ‘Bolshevik Revolution’,” she says, pointing to the infighting. “I had always wondered what it was like … and then I found myself in the middle.” Trump administration portrayed by Fiona Hill, former National Security Council official specializing in Russian and European affairs, in a Financial Times interview, June 12, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Snapshot As a populist Trump is happy to exploit anger; as the Toddler in Chief, howerver he is a slave to his own temper. Donald Trump portrayed by Daniel W. Drezner in The Toddler in Chief © 2020 Kwiple.com
Snapshot A little shit. Donald Trump portrayed by one of his elementary school teachers quoted by Daniel W. Drezner in The Toddler in Chief  © 2016 Kwiple.com
Snapshot There is an abundance of evidence that Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States, has the emotional and intellectual range of a misbehaving toddler.  Outside observers, family members, and Trump's biographers have all reached this conclusion. … The reason the staff turnover [at the WHite House] is so high is the same reason turnover is so high at a daycare center: the pay is meager compared to what is demanded of employees. Donald Trump portrayed by Daniel W. Drezner in The Toddler in Chief © 2020 Kwiple.com
State of the union The Supreme Court has weakened the conflict- of-interest laws we have on the books. Trump and his Republican wrecking crew are ripping out the floorboards under the government ethics porgram. His administration has taught us the difference between theory and application and shown us what immunity to accountability looks like. What good are laws if no one in power will enforce them? Before Trump, our nation was admired for its anticorruption mechanisms, and its ethics program was considered the gold standard. No more. Once a model for other nations, we are now an object lesson for them. Walter M. Schaub. Jr. New York Review of Books, Juky 2, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Taxes In 2019, Carnival [Cruise Line] paid income tax expenses of $71 million on $20.83 billion in revenue [0.34%]. Royal Caribbean paid $36.2 million in taxes on $10.95 billion in revenue. [0.33%] And Norwegian actually showed a tax benefit, money it is owed, of $18.86 million on $6.46 billion in revenue. New York Times, April 8, 2020 © 2020 Kwiple.com